SunRay Kelley (featured in Builders of the Pacific Coast) just finished this stove in a strawbale house in Lake County, California. The design is the result of many stoves built over many years. The outer facing is soapstone. There are copper coils that heat water and as well, run hot water through pipes in the floor for radiant heating. At the top is a bread/pizza oven. This one unit heats the house (the air as well as the floor), provides hot water, and is an oven for cooking. SunRay says the soapstone “…takes on deep heat.” The floor is a “…heat battery” that stores heat. He calls it the Goddess of Contentment stove. He says it works really well, the floor is toasty warm and the pizza gets perfectly cooked.
SunRay and his girlfriend Bonnie were here last night, on their way to Santa Barbara, LA, then Mexico for 6 weeks, in their soon-to-be solar-powered camper.
Next up for SunRay in the stove department is in a new house he’s building on his own property in Washington: the same configuration stove, but with the addition of a steam boiler to run a turbine that produces electricity. We are into new territory here!
Photo by Bonnie
Here they used an old tried-and-true design, with recycled corrugated steel roofing, and it’s a great effect. (Another place this kind of rusty roofing has been used effectively is The House of Blues, on Sunset Blvd, in L.A.). This barn fits in nicely. Farmer architecture. (If a real architect designed this building, hats off to him for something so straight-forward and non-egomaniacal.)
Yesterday we visited a straw bale house SunRay built. This little girl’s mom was mixing purple plaster for the walls and the little girl was trying to help. Look at those eyes!
The unique natural materials temple built by SunRay Kelley in the northern Californai hills 3 years ago (and featured in Builders of the Pacific Coast) is holding up beautifully. I checked it out yesterday. The cob walls are still smoothly sculptured and unpitted. Everyone who goes into this building feels good. It’s a masterpiece.
Great review by Keith Goetzman in the Utne Reader blog. It’s so great when someone gets it.
“…a photo-splashed book full of amazing, rustic, wood-built dwellings and shelters on islands and in other remote seaside locations in the Pacific Northwest.
The area’s huge trees and ubiquitous driftwood lend themselves to curvaceous, organic design, and these builders take full advantage of these qualities in structures that range from a Hobbit-like gazebo to a spherical treehouse to grand but still-earthy luxury homes and spas. Many of the homes are reachable only by boat and perched in impossibly beautiful settings.
There’s a strong countercultural thread to these builders, many of whom were inspired by Kahn’s 1973 book Shelter, a bible of sorts for that decade’s back-to-the-land movement. And Kahn’s laid-back writing style is full of metaphysical allusions and meandering asides about his travels, giving it a whiff of patchouli and B.C. bud. But looking at these homes, it’s hard to doubt that there’s ‘a vortex of creative carpentry energy in this part of the world,’ as the book states. Moss roofs, bentwood railings, hand-carved details, natural motifs, and Native influences complement the area’s mossy, foggy splendor and speak to its natural and human history.…”
Photo: loft in dome by SunRay Kelley in Builders of the Pacific Coast
https://www.utne.com/Environment/Dream-Homes-from-Driftwood.aspx
I just ran across this website because of a Google Alert notice that they had reviewed Jason Sussberg’s film of Shelter. The Hansen Family is a Scandinavian family of carpenters, designers and architects:
“We produce our furniture in a small atelier using ecologically grown wood, which comes mainly from massive oak and sustainable forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, FSC. Located at the heart of the Sauerland region in Germany, our main atelier is surrounded by these forests and therefore nestled in the woods. We precociously select each piece of wood by hand, which allows us to say that not one piece is alike to the other. The design features the wood itself, giving birth to handcrafted and unique objects.”
https://boardbook.thehansenfamily.eu/
Article in today’s New York Times by Kim Severson
“BEFORE Alice Waters picked her first Little Gem lettuce and Wolfgang Puck draped smoked salmon across a pizza, California cuisine meant something else.
“The other California cuisine was being served on a million patios in the Golden State by relaxed cooks who grilled thick cuts of beef called tri-tip and built salads from avocado and oranges. They used red chili sauce like roux, ate abalone and oysters, and whipped sticky dates into milkshakes. It was the food of the gold rush and of immigrants, of orchards and sunshine.…
“‘What Sunset has done really well is reflect the changes in the way people in the West live,’ said Barbara Fairchild, who will retire as editor in chief of Bon Appétit in November. ‘It’s a style of living and cooking that really is different.’ She moved from the East Coast to Los Angeles with her family in the 1960s. It was the first time she had ever seen an artichoke or an avocado. Her father began grilling over the big built-in brick barbecue while the children cooled off in the above-ground pool.
“Dinners, especially in the summer, were salads. Red meat gave way to chicken or fish — quite a radical departure for many family menus then.…”
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/dining/20sunset.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&src=dayp
How about Sunset’s corporate headquarters? Photo by Heidi Schumann for the NY Times
Also from Robin Wood (robin-wood.co.uk):
“Video of the Japanese Tea house being put together, probably filmed over a period of around 4-5 hours. The Japanese carpenters are very precise and each part actually went together and was taken apart again several times until they were satisfied with the fit.”
Japanese tea house construction from Nicola Wood on Vimeo.
“It is difficult to estimate how long it took to prepare the timbers, but it was made entirely from trees that were felled on the worksite and converted using hand tools. The Japanese carpenters had done quite a bit of background work before we got there and then a mixed Japanese / European group of 15-20 people spent a solid seven days of work on it before this final construction.”
Robin found this at: https://nicolawood.typepad.co.uk/kesurokai/2010/09/tea-house-construction-video.html#
We just got a wonderful email from builder Robin Wood, of Edale, Derbeyshire, UK. Robin makes countryside furniture and other wooden items.
“Robin’s latest piece is a wooden footbridge, carved from a naturally-curved sweet chestnut tree growing just 200 yards from the site.
This beautiful bridge is in a special location; it is easily accessible but as you cross over it you come out onto open moorland and get a real sense of entering a wild and beautiful place.”
More links from Robin to follow.
robin-wood.co.uk
There are 15 green roofs shown on this treehugger posting: https://is.gd/fL729
SunRay Kelley (featured in Builders of the Pacific Coast) just finished this stove in a strawbale house in Lake County, California. The design is the result of many stoves built over many years. The outer facing is soapstone. There are copper coils that heat water and as well, run hot water through pipes in the floor for radiant heating. At the top is a bread/pizza oven. This one unit heats the house (the air as well as the floor), provides hot water, and is an oven for cooking. SunRay says the soapstone “…takes on deep heat.” The floor is a “…heat battery” that stores heat. He calls it the Goddess of Contentment stove. He says it works really well, the floor is toasty warm and the pizza gets perfectly cooked.
